The 30-year-old Anger is taking over the Essex 73’s hockey club, which boasts 21 league titles, 14 appearances in the Schmalz Cup final and seven All-Ontario titles since its inception.

With head coach Gil Langlois opting to retire, Anger, who emerged from a group of nearly 20 applicants, knows his job now is to continue the success of the program from behind the bench.

“That’s probably the biggest pressure,” said Anger, who is a Woodslee native. “You want to fulfill that tradition.

“This isn’t any junior team, it’s the 73’s. Just being a hometown kid, I think there’s an expectation to succeed. I want to fill those shoes.”

This was a job that Anger looked into a year ago when Cam Crowder left to become head coach and part owner of the junior B Leamington Flyers, but Langlois agreed to return to the team for one season.

“I approached Essex to see if there was any interest in coaching them and they had already committed to Gil,” said Anger, who kept in touch with 73’s general manager Steve Caldwell. “Steve and I stayed in contact and luckily he contacted me to put in an application and it worked out great.”

Anger never played for the 73’s, but followed the team growing up.

“I went to Essex high (school), all my buddies played for the (7)3’s,” Anger said. “So, it’s kind of humbling to coach the team I grew up watching. I remember going to the old barn and they were winning all the championships. As a kid, you had dreams of playing for Essex, but you never knew there might be a bigger step.”

Anger went from minor hockey to junior B and played two seasons in the OHL with the Sarnia Sting and another three seasons with the University of Windsor Lancers.

“He’s done that,” Caldwell said of his playing career. “He’s played the game and at a level higher than our guys.”

For the past decade, Anger has coached Sun County and led the ’05 team to the All-Ontario pee wee AAA championship a year ago.

“I just want to take that next step and see if I actually can coach,” Anger said. “There isn’t pressure because I’ve been there before and won. I kind of know what we have to do to get there.”

Caldwell said the committee that made the selection of Anger was impressed with his interview and players were responsive to the hire.

“The way he presented himself and talked, I could see everyone relating to it and buying into it,” Caldwell said. “I saw players excited and re-energized. He’s kicked into everyone’s mind.”

Anger, who retained assistant coaches Chad Wolters and Dallas Pereira while bringing on former Spitfire Mike James, will wrap up his first rookie camp on Thursday. The club has 15 players eligible to return, but he’s not afraid to make changes.

“Our game plan, moving forward, is trying to develop the ’02 (born) and ’01’s, rather than just turning over older guys and getting older guys back in, is the right game plan,” Anger said. “There’ll be movement. There has to be movement. Any team, even when we won the championship in Sun County, there was always a turnover. There has to be a turnover. You need new blood.”

But Anger is fully aware of the expectations of the job both on and off the ice.

“There’s such a big tradition and the community expects big things both on the ice and off the ice,” Anger said. “A lot of people expect this to be a rebuild year. I don’t see this as a rebuild year. I see it as a retooling year. I think that we can get the job done with younger players and rookies because the skill level’s there. They just need to understand they can compete with the older players.”

This is a job that doesn’t come open often and, if Caldwell has his way, won’t be open again for a very long time.

“It’s a long relationship we’re hoping for,” Caldwell said. “We look five-to-10 years and he’s said he’s in for it.”